


A Night at the Circus

by Ezzy



Series: Victoriana Gotham [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8159080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezzy/pseuds/Ezzy
Summary: The posters promised dazzling feats in a night no one would forget. They weren't wrong. 
Lord Bruce Wayne attends the circus and acquires a ward.





	

“When Lord Bruce Wayne sees the little boy heave himself up onto his arms after miraculously surviving the fall, only to find his parents’ unmoving bodies, his heart breaks for the loss he sees in the boy’s face. 

He’s barely recovered from the shock of witnessing their deaths himself, but he knows what it feels like to be that alone, and he knows he will do anything to shelter him.

Bruce summons his lawyer once the police take the bodies and boy away, informing Alfred that he doesn’t care what hour of the morning it is, if he’s awake he will damn well pay his lawyer awake. 

His lawyer looks, tired, rumpled and terrified, Bruce doesn’t know what the man thinks he needs his services for, but nothing good from the look of him. If anything he looks even worse after he’s given the man his instructions, but it’s done. 

The Grayson child shall be his ward by the end of the week. 

And with that he goes off to deal with the other business. The boy will have a home, of this Bruce will guarantee, but he shall also have justice. 

The case is wrapped up swiftly and efficiently (though with perhaps a touch more violence then most), the guardianship less so. 

There is a snag. A slight, minor, unexpected hiccup in proceedings. The boy is not a boy. The boy is a girl. 

This brings with it a host of new problems and things to consider, Bruce has never had too much interaction with the fairer sex and is decidedly unqualified and apparently inappropriate for a guardianship. There are other options, the nuns who run the orphanage rush to reassure him, he could pay for her to attend a seminary for young ladies, or he could sponsor her into society. 

He changes his nightly patrol to go past her window. She looks cold and small and desperately lonely. 

There were never any other options, she was his from the moment she managed to heave herself off the floor and become more than another corpse in Gotham’s morgue. 

Bruce throws more money, more lawyers and the entire weight of the Wayne name at the situation until a judge finally gives him the papers to sign.

When he returns to the orphanage the nuns lead her out to him, clutching the cloth bag of possessions she’s been allowed to keep and drowning in a borrowed, fraying grey dress too large for her. The arm not holding the bag is wrapped around her waist, and she’s even smaller than he remembers, a tiny sprite like figure he has no idea what to do with. But she’s his.

And as she approaches him and looks up he meets her gaze and tries to project everything even he hasn’t quite figured out yet. Maybe she understands him anyway. Because she drops her bag and reaches up for him, posture not curled up and defensive for the first time since Bruce saw her fly in the Big Top. 

Picking her up, letting her tuck her face into the crook of his neck as Alfred takes charge of her bag and ushers them both to the carriage, that is the moment Bruce also becomes hers.


End file.
